Private companies have been able to gain a competitive advantage by diversifying their staffing to incorporate a broad range of skill sets. The first speaker describes his organization which is able to staff seasoned teachers, administrators, entrepreneurs, etc. This wide array of talents serves as a catalyst for creativity. Furthermore, once innovative ideas emerge, private businesses hold the capital and expertise to manage an effective scaling process. I believe the key to personalizing learning is administering frequent assessments with customized interventions. This provides students with the flexibility to learn at their own pace, but ensures the instructor is staying attune to the students’ progress and can administer the necessary interventions to properly facilitate the learning process.

I think private companies have the opportunity to trial and error learning innovations much easier than schools. They have the luxury of assessing new material or creating new tools for learning, testing it to ensure that it works and then offering it up for schools to enhance learning.
As far as individualizing learning, I agree with the video when he explains about asynchronous learning and working at their own pace. The students are not bound by their peers on how fast they move through a subject or bound by the teacher, they can move at their own pace. I think that this helps motivate them. For instance, when my daughter was in third grade they had a reading program that was at their own pace. This program had them take quizzes after they read a book and they would get points based on what level the book was it and how long it was. After each month, they could get prizes for the points they earned or they could save them up for bigger prizes at the end. They would have an assembly after each quarter and the students would get acknowledgement for the level they were at. So if the student cared about getting prizes or being acknowledged, they were going to work hard and read more books. Moving at their own pace allows them the opportunity to be where they are comfortable.

Private companies do possess the capital, as stated by the VP of K12 Inc., but it comes down to how they use this to benefit students and learning. I personally have contracted services with K12 Inc. for over 8 years now and could write a book on how poorly this company is managed. A for-profit mindset is maintained at the expense of enrolling students who are ill prepared for a full-time online school. It was a difficult segment to view as personalizing a leanring environment can be done, but not in a quality way at K12 Inc, with teachers having 400-500 students on their caseloads. At times 3-4 different teachers turn over in a semester…making it so difficult for students, parents and school personnel to communicate with the newest teacher assigned to a course. The intentions of the private company is the essential component; is their drive to make money greater than service to students?

What works best in my experience (online setting) for personalizing a learning pathway for students is getting a baseline on their core abilities. The content then can be prescribed for each student and the teacher facilitating and progress monitoring. Assessment benchmarking at various times in the year helps to monitor growth, and allow for adjustments in the content for each student.

I really like Hughes’ definition of personalized learning. The personalized learning that he describes allows the learner to go at their own pace. It gives the teachers the opportunities to assess the students to ensure that they are moving along as to how they should be. Giving the students the opportunity to improve on their own can be very motivating for them. It allows students to take control of their own learning. Also, I think that it allows the students that are not performing up to grade level to improve at the pace that they can. They still are seeing improvement personally so it is still motivating for them, as well.
The type of learning that Hughes describes is personalized learning. I think his definition feeds off of Coiro’s definition that it is a top-down approach, the teacher is still controlling the learning by performing assessments but the student is moving through at their own pace. After they demonstrate understanding, the teacher will give them a new set of assignments to move through.

Mr. Hughs identifies the efforts his company as one of personalizing learning for students. Working at their own pace, but monitored by a teacher. The short and frequent assessments provided to monitor mastery of content is good in theory, but must include varying depth of knowledge levels and not simply a 5 question multiple choice assessment. Personal learning allows for independent and interest driven motivation.

The Department of Education is figuring out how to change and adapt. They recognize that what they are doing is not working. The government is trying to think about the best way to institute a federal improvement system that takes the place of what has not been working in the past. Trying to institute a new form of assessments for students that starts at the national level and works its way through the states is something that the department is trying to get underway.
Now that they require all of the grant recipients to make their information public, it allows other schools, administrators and faculty to view what is happening around the country. It will only empower others to make better choices and changes regarding student learning.

It sounds like there is an urgency at the federal level to transform into more of an “engine of innovation” rather than oversight and compliancy. Things do tend to move much faster at the state level and the education departments roll out new initiatives and changes throughout each year. I think it is a great approach to highlight small examples and “shine the light” on schools that are innovating with technology. They can continue sharing and bringing together state departments when good things are happening for students. As for grants, the grant writing process can be tedious with no guarantee of the monitory gift, but there are several offered and technology is infused across departments. In order to encourage new models, moving more quickly in decision making with funding and resources available, at least keeping up with the technology, is difficult, but necessary.

I like how Zoran mentioned that students gravitate towards games. At every level, a student is going to be pulled towards the game environment. The ability to have a game that can be distributed nationally, then collect data on that from around the world, is quite amazing.
A barrier would be that all schools would have to be prepared to participate in this type of learning. They would need high-speed internet and the tools, like computers or whatever they have to have to be involved in the game. A risk would be that all students that are not able to participate would sway the research in a different direction.

As the Director of the Center for Gaming Science, it is not surprising that Zoran gravitated towards gamified elements in education. I am personally fascinated by gamified elements’ ability to create engagement and motivation in a learning environment.

Scaling local innovations projects can be problematic if the risks to generalization are not properly explored. Often times these unique scenarios’ successes are either directly or indirectly depended on a unique variable that may be difficult to duplicate. Rarely is there a silver bullet that can work in every educational environment. A model and its original environment should be scrutinized before adoption decisions are made. Additionally, local programs that have grassroots beginnings are often the result of high levels of user buy-in. This is a process that often best occurs naturally and can be difficult to drive in a new environment.

Zoran’s initial statement of looking at education as a data-driven science is difficult to do with the complexity that is involved. He makes a good case of “why games”, listing several key items that should be taken into consideration, such as the natural engagement for students, time involved/dedicated, and the platform for large-scale randomized studies. These are valid points and the potential to have adaptive release of content through gaming education is a terrific example of personalized learning. To reach the sale Zoran talks about, there must be accessibility beyond the school day for students. This may be a large barrier, depending on funding and support required. Teachers would need PD and support as well, in order to facilitate and monitor student achievement. This all takes time.

Ms. Weiss uses these key terms to express the intention of creating an environment where all learners have equitable access to personalized learning options. She claims that the journey to making this happen will not only require new ways of thinking and broad adoption, but rely heavily on innovations and collaboration.

What Ms. Weiss describes will take a great deal of effort. Transforming a system can be challenging, especially at the federal level. I like her mention of public/private partnerships, they do work well, but dependent on the region or state in which the private company selects the educational entity.

I think that his description that “education is a data-driven science” is not really accurate. In one sense I guess it could be true. How many kids are graduating, What are they doing after graduating, Where are they going to college?, that is some data that can be taken from the education field. Education is much more than that on a daily basis though. It’s students making friends, learning how to navigate their peer network, getting encouragement, working in teams, learning how to self-motivate, those are just a few examples. He makes it sound like it is very robotic and there is only one thing to gain from education and that is the data that is coming out of it.
I think this assumes that teachers treat their teaching like it is mechanical. The teachers are only worried about the data that is coming from what they are doing on a daily basis, not that they are worried about the students. And that students are only learning what they are presented with and nothing more.

Two of the key elements of a digital learning environment are that they are collaborative and purposeful. Ensuring that they are both collaborative and purposeful will ensure that they are successful. Collaboration among individuals is going to help with communication and enable individuals to understand what is the purpose, what should individuals be getting out of the learning environment. If the learning environment does not have a purpose, then it just might as well be a game for students.

Zolt describes the key elements of the Common Core curriculum. Many states have adopted this, and some have not. Engagement is a continued term heard throughout the panel. She also mentions project-based, authentic and integrated learning. I really liked her description of the book club, matching up students with an adult learning partner. This is difficult to do as many adults are very willing to mentor students, yet with the safety measures schools must monitor and uphold, it can shy away adults willing to get involved as there is a level of liability that is taken on.

It is interesting that Zolt puts an emphasis on writing, whereas Hughes put an emphasis on Math and Popovic put an emphasis on Science. Students and teachers, through writing, are allowing themselves to be more creative and express themselves. Students read in all subjects, and different forms of writing allows them to create their own pieces and express their individuality. I like that she says that students can produce their own writing, collaborate with their peers or with their teachers, and to understand technology to further their own learning. There are so many ways to use technology and writing and to be able to assess students understanding of writing that through the use of technology teachers will be able to further students’ knowledge and enable them to further their own.

She referenced Common Core and the key elements early on, stating reading, thinking and communication create the foundation. Her emphasis seemed to also be on literacy, reading and writing, which is what her company is about.

The policy barriers that Hughes points out are spot on, I think. The system is setup is for learning that happened a long time ago. They need to be updated and set for the digital age of learning. Bringing innovation into schools is a great topic. There are so many barriers that need to be broken down in order to be able to do that. Weiss points out that technology-enhanced education is going to be a way to break down those barriers. I think that she is right and education technology is the way to the future, it just needs to be brought into curriculum properly. Popovic points out the policy changes that need to take place. The adaptation that needs to happen throughout the educational process. Finally, Zolt discusses school districts unwillingness to change. There are plenty of rural schools or even urban schools that are finding it difficult to jump on the technology band wagon either because of monetary reasons or because of staff or administrators that do not want to evolve.
Breaking the barriers is going to be a difficult process. There are so many barriers and individuals to get past in order to fix the process.

Zolt’s comments regarding school districts unwillingness to change strongly resonated with I have experienced in higher education. When trying to diffuse new ideas or innovations across an institution, adoption is needed at multiple levels and this can be hard to drive. Unfortunately, I have seen great ideas begin at the top levels of administration and fail because there were forced downward upon employees in a heavy handed manor. I have also see great grass-roots initiatives be proposed and shot down, because administrators are out of touch with needs in the trenches. Being the kinds of changes the panelists are speaking of affects personal across all staffing layers, a strategic and prudent approach is needed to drive adoption.

Many exist and this panel did a good job highlighting from their experiences. Seat time is a good one, our school calendar is dependent on the number of days and hours of instruction required by the state. MI did have seat-time waivers available in previous years, with districts applying for specific criteria, along with a fully detailed plan of how students would learn. Most schools used the waiver for alternative education, yielding low passing rates and eventually the waivers were no longer offered. MI did shift into a new model with what is called 21f legislation, and individual districts must comply with set requirements to provide online learning.

I like how Weiss simply states she does not have the answers. I agree with her, there are many misconceptions and finding a way to write policy that allows for innovation is difficult. Popovic states this as well, providing a really interesting way of drafting policy, using the term cascading. Finally, Zolt makes mention of the need to stop viewing technology as an enemy, as well as limitations for access; she then circles back around to encouraging more writing. This too she notes there are barriers when doing so (hard to test/score, takes time).

I think personalized education is an amazing idea. I think that it lets kids self-regulate themselves and puts them in charge of their own education. I think that allows teachers and students both the freedom to not feel bogged down by curriculum, even though they would still be following a curriculum. I like that it lets kids advance at their own pace, so students aren’t being pushed through too fast or too slow. Also, I think it takes away the embarrassment factor that comes along for students that do not understand content. I really like this idea for education!

I agree with many of the points made by the panelists and am excited about the concept of personalized education. However, while I believe this has a place in the future of education, I do not think it is necessarily a one-size fits all approach. Without looking at any hard evidence, I would wager that there are a lot of young learners who would benefits from a more structured curriculum. Alleviating student embarrassment was mentioned a few times as a benefit to this approach. However, this embarrassment may serve as an extrinsic motivator that keeps many students engaged and drives academic outcomes. Additionally, in implementing this approach at a young age I could see significant gaps of disparity between student progress emerging over time. From an academic administration standpoint, I could see this being hard to manage after a few years’ time.

This is very real to me in my current position; I navigate policy regularly as it is difficult to fit an online and blended school into traditional practice and accountability reporting. Assessments that are competency-based provide individual student information that goes beyond a test they took one day (or 2) during the school year. Providing schools with computers, but having to dedicate those machines to 3 months of state testing does defeat the purpose. Personalized learning is possible, but does required more resources to be effective.